Discover which big-name celebrities turned to daytime TV dramas to launch their careers

A mere two years after CBS cancelled the long-running soap opera Guiding Light, two more beloved daytime TV dramas have been put on the chopping block. In April 2011, ABC announced that All My Children would end in September and One Life to Live would follow in January. While many fans are so distraught they've decided to protest the cancellations, we have our own reason to lament the end to this type of programming: It has launched some of the biggest careers in show business. From Oscar winners to popular TV stars, discover 10 surprising actors who got their start in the soaps.

Long ago, before Growing Pains, this Titanic star played young Mason Capwell in 1990 on NBC's Santa Barbara, a soap opera about a rich family in…you guessed it: Santa Barbara, California. Photo: WireImage/Getty Images

Whether you're a fan of his work in such films as 1989's Field of Dreams and 1990's The Hunt for Red October or just know his voice from 1994's The Lion King or the Star Wars franchise, James Earl Jones may be one of the last people you'd expect to have appeared on a soap opera. But he did just that on CBS's Guiding Light in 1966, in which he was the second actor to play former hospital administrator Dr. Jim Frazier. That same year he starred on the same network's As the World Turns as Dr. Jerry Turner, making him the first African-American man to take a continuing role on a daytime soap opera. Photo: Getty Images

Depending on your movie preferences (and your age), you probably know this Oscar winner either for his role in 1980's Coal Miner's Daughter, 1993's The Fugitive or 1997's Men in Black. But before all that, he regularly appeared as Dr. Mark Toland, a moody man in a passionless marriage, from 1971 to 1975 on the ABC soap One Life to Live. Photo: WireImage/Getty Images

She may not be the biggest surprise on this list, but you'll still be interested to know it wasn't too long ago that this Desperate Housewives cast member was a soap star on CBS's The Young and the Restless. From 2001 to 2003, Longoria played Isabella Braña Williams, a call girl who falls in love with—and ends up marrying—the man she was hired to seduce. Photo: WireImage/Getty Images

It's hard to believe we can go back any further for Demi Moore than 1985's St. Elmo's Fire, but from 1982 to 1983, this soon-to-be Brat-Packer was starring on ABC's General Hospital as Jackie. Photo: WireImage/Getty Images

Known for her serious acting chops in such dramatic roles as 1997's Boogie Nights and 2010's The Kids Are All Right, this four-time Oscar nominee got one of her first big breaks in 1986 as the young Frannie Hughes Crawford on As the World Turns. Photo: WireImage/Getty Images

He might've been the young, gun-slinging heartthrob in 1991's Thelma & Louise, which catapulted him to mega-stardom, but before that, this Hollywood hunk was a relative nobody playing Chris on NBC's Another World in 1987. Photo: WireImage/Getty Images

You may know America's sweetheart Meg Ryan best for her 1989 portrayal of Sally Albright in When Harry Met Sally, but before Sally, there was Betsy Stewart Montgomery Andropoulos. From 1982 to 1984 on CBS's As the World Turns, Ryan played a girl unlucky in love. And she was a popular character, too. Her 1984 wedding episode to star-crossed lover, Scott Andropoulos, drew in 20 million viewers. Photo: WireImage/Getty Images

While the oldest role that Susan Sarandon is really known for is Janet Weiss in 1975's The Rocky Horror Picture Show, her acting career took off in 1969 when she played Patrice Kahlman on ABC's A World Apart. Then in 1972 she played the murderous Sarah Fairbanks on Search for Tomorrow. Photo: WireImage/Getty Images